Those who are not familiar with the website DPReview.com can’t claim to be seriously interested in photography. Such persons approach photography in a creative, results-oriented, perhaps even in an artistic but certainly wrong way. Because as we all know, better cameras and lenses make better pictures! 😉

All joking aside, there are many good reasons to visit DPReview.com. One reason is the camera reviews that are regularly published on the website and that are among the most detailed and most objective ones you can find online. Another reason is the numerous smart, technically as well as creatively experienced forum posters from whom you can learn a lot and get inspired. Of course, as is the case in all big forums, you’ll also encounter lots of trolls and fan boys whose senseless comments, which may raise your blood pressure, you fortunately don’t have to read thanks to the ignore feature. 😉

However, the highlight on DPReview is the Studio Test Scene comparison tool. This is a tool – with images of the same studio subject taken with different cameras – with which you can set parameters like RAW/JPG, ISO sensitivity, resolution (nominal resolution, adjusted etc.) and daylight/low-light simulation and thus compare cameras specifically with each other. A couple of days ago two Sigma cameras, the DP2 Quattro and the DP1 Merrill, were also added to Studio Test Scene. In the following screenshot you can see what a comparison of several cameras looks like.

Actually, I wanted to compare the Nikon Coolpix A or the Ricoh GR, respectively, with the Sigma DP1 Merrill, and the Sony A5000 with the DP2 Quattro. Unfortunately, these cameras aren’t included in the tool. 😦 But you can compare more than 140 cameras with each other.

I don’t think that dpreview is biased towards a certain manufacturer. That being said, there is no denying that they are biased towards manufacturers which get hyped a lot and whose products they think are going to sell well. As of late that is Sony with its mirrorless line of cameras, before that it was Canon with its DSLRs. It wasn’t like that, before the website got acquired by amazon, at least not to this degree. Anyway, a niche camera maker, such as Sigma, is not going to get the spotlight, that’s for sure.